Q&A with Sophie Chen Keller

Q: You've noted that the inspiration for this novel came
from a "lost" flyer that you saw in Hawaii. How did that eventually
turn into the book?

A: While camping on a volcano in Maui, I stumbled across a
“Lost” flyer that someone had posted at the campsite. It was for a missing
camera that contained irreplaceable family photos with sentimental value.

It was clear how much the camera meant to whoever posted the
flyer, and I couldn’t stop wondering whether they had ended up finding it. I
thought about all the things people lost, and what they were really looking
when they looked for something like a missing camera. I wondered whether anyone
responded to these flyers.

That’s when I had my first idea of who Walter would be—a boy
who dedicated himself to answering “Lost” flyers. Naturally, that led me to the
intriguing question of why he was doing it.

Upon returning from the trip, I began writing Walter’s
story. I thought of it as a grown-up version of the books my mom used to read
out loud to me before bed.

I wanted it to bring us back to those childhood classics, to
that time when the world was bright and brimming with possibility. As we get
older, it becomes easier to forget that the world can still be like that.

When we are feeling helpless or afraid, I hope that The
Luster of Lost Things is a breath of fresh air—a tale that’s warm and wondrous
and joyous, yet layered with meaning and observations on what it means to be
human.

Q: Can you say more about how you came up with your main
character, Walter, and how you created his narrative voice?

A: As I pondered the question of why Walter would spend his
time looking for the things people lost, I came across a disorder in the course
of my research, a motor speech disorder called childhood apraxia of speech.

It’s often misdiagnosed as autism or ADD, but it’s a
neurological disorder where the brain knows what it wants to say, but has
difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to produce those sounds.

It seemed to me a lot like being trapped inside your own
head, which was something I identified with. I didn’t know a word of English
when I immigrated from China to the U.S., and I remember starting school and
not being able to communicate my thoughts and needs to anyone. It was
frustrating, lonely and, at times, frightening.

One time, I was sent to the principal’s office and my
parents were called in from work to pick me up, because I refused to present a
book report. The teacher thought I was being defiant, but in reality, I was
self-conscious and afraid of speaking in front of the class.

In creating Walter’s voice, I wanted to highlight that
contrast between what you see on the surface and what actually goes on
underneath.

As Walter tells us his story—the first one he has to tell in
his 13 years, with the excitable and grandiose flourishes of any child who is
bursting to tell you a story—his voice is fluid, imaginative and trenchant,
from a lifetime of living in silence, looking and listening and left to his own
thoughts. It’s a sharp difference from his verbal speech patterns, which are
halting and limited.

At the same time, he’s still 12 years old—his voice is
simple and direct, drawing unexpected connections or painfully honest
conclusions, as children tend to do, to the chagrin of the adults around them.

Even as Walter tracks lost items, even as he interacts with
the diverse people he encounters, his voice—the richness and compassion of his
inner world—remains the clearest reminder of all for us to see beyond the surface.

Q: Could this book have been set anywhere else besides New
York City, and how important is setting to you in your writing?

A: Setting matters. Of course, it matters in terms of
creating a believable and transporting reading experience, but it also shapes
many of the other story elements—the voice, the style, the characters and the
issues they face and the ways they live and think and react.

Much of The Luster of Lost Things is about finding a place
to belong, to be at home; it’s about our shared humanity, and nowhere is that
more obvious than in New York City.

You see how different people are, and at the exact same
time, how similar—in the mingling and clashing of cultures and backgrounds, in
the universal emotions that spill out onto the streets as people carry their
personal baggage onto subway platforms, inside restaurants, across parks.

The characters that Walter encounters in his journey are a
familiar and distinctive part of that urban landscape—the conductors of the
trains you take everywhere, the can collectors you see searching through piles
at the street corners, the food vendors you run out to for lunch—and yet, they
are ultimately just like the good folks living in California, in Ohio, in
Massachusetts, in China (coming from someone who has lived in all of these
places)—people with aspirations and disappointments and joys, people who have
lost things, people who are searching for the missing pieces.

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started
writing, or did you make many changes along the way?

A: I’m not much of a planner, in writing and in life. My
writing usually starts with some kernel that lodges in my heart—an image, a
concept—that bothers me until I write about it. Then I’ll just start writing,
figuring out everything else as I go.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m working on a second novel. I have a lot of ideas for
it, and I’m already very excited about them!

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I hope that Walter’s journey will remind people that
there is goodness that lives in them and around them. That’s a message I feel
many, including me, need to hear—to remember.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).